The Timberwolves can clinch a spot in the eight-team knockout round of the NBA's inaugural in-season tournament with a victory Friday.
Timberwolves can clinch spot in NBA knockout round by beating Kings. Then what?
Beating Sacramento at Target Center would guarantee the Timberwolves a spot among the final eight teams in the NBA's first in-season tournament.
November 24, 2023 at 12:39PM
The Wolves are 2-0 in the West Group C field, having beaten Golden State and San Antonio on the road. Sacramento is also 2-0 after victories over San Antonio and Oklahoma City.
Sacramento is at Target Center to face the Wolves on Friday night in both teams' third game of the in-season tournament.
If the Wolves win, they would win their group and advance to the quarterfinals of the tournament, regardless of what happens in their fourth and final in-season tournament game Tuesday against Oklahoma City. They would have the head-to-head tiebreaker over Sacramento and Golden State, the only teams who could still finish 3-1 after they face each other Tuesday.
Here's how the in-season tournament — an addition to the league this year as it attempts to drum up interest during a time of the season when fans might not be paying much attention to basketball — works:
1. There are six groups of five teams with each group winner plus two wild cards advancing to an eight-team knockout tournament.
The league designated certain regular-season games before December on the schedule as tournament games.
2. Should they advance to the knockout round, the Wolves would play in the quarterfinals Dec. 4 or 5, with the semifinals and finals taking place Dec. 7-9 in Las Vegas. A potential Wolves quarterfinal game will be home or away based on their final seed coming out of group play. All games count as regular-season games except the finals, with each player on the winning team receiving $500,000. Second place gets $200,000 each. If the Wolves don't make the final eight, the league will schedule two other regular-season games for them to play around that time, one home, one road game.
3. Tiebreakers for seeding will be determined first by head-to-head play during the group stage (no other regular-season games will factor into seeding), followed by point differential and then total points. So teams might have a reason to completely blow the doors off an opponent, depending on how seriously they are taking this tournament.
Taylor, who also owns the Lynx, told season ticket holders he would “miss being there to cheer on the team.”
